Peter Saville

Peter Saville is most recently famous for the new England home kit that he designed in late 2010. He was approached by Umbro, who had decided the shirt must be white. Peter Saville’s job was to introduce some colour to the shirt. After producing an experimental sheet of over 50 ideas, he developed a few ideas including, colour piping and multi-coloured crosses. Then he experimented with various shapes, including squares, diamonds and plus signs. The idea of multi-coloured crosses, symbolizing St George’s cross, on a predominantly white shirt. Peter Saville was proud with what he achieved and describes “his involvement as the most potent work he has ever done”. However, the public’s reaction was mostly negative. His design was described as resembling confetti and an exotic strain of dandruff.

My opinion on the shirt is that even though the final shirt looks way to simple and boring, the criticism given was a bit over the top. I think the idea of including symbolization of the St George’s cross is a nice, deep, meaningful idea. Yet more work could have been done to make the shirt more exiting and appealing. I understand why Peter Saville chose this idea but for some reason I don’t think the idea has been fully developed enough to dig in deeper to scoop out the full potential of the idea. The shirt does not look appealing enough and if you were watching a football game you would not even notice the multi-coloured crosses on the shirt.